Travel ban on European passengers

The government has suspended the issuance of visas to European passengers for two weeks as a precautionary measure against the COVID-19 outbreak.

The decision was taken by the Task Force on Coronavirus which met today at the presidential secretariat with participation of President Gotabhaya Rajapaksa and Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa.

It was also decided to subject Sri Lankans arriving from European countries to be quarantined for two weeks and instructed the relevant authorities to study the precautionary measures taken by China to prevent the outbreak of the virus.

It was also decided to sterilize the public transport such as trains and buses from today and attention was dawn to make face masks available at a controlled price and regularize their distribution so that they would be freely available.